The ThermoLab BARAM

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Two of ThermoLab's innovative design elements are seen here. First is the staggering of the five, 6mm heat-pipes to aide in more dissipation area for the pipes to transfer heat to the fins. Secondly, being the fins themselves. The BARAM uses a wavy shape with their fin design and alternates each fin to have the opposite wave pattern. The orientation of the fins allows the air to penetrate the fins with more flow and thus dropping temperatures.

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The side of the BARAM gains a bit more perspective on how they have alternated the 54 fins. You can also see that the heat-pipes are sandwiched and soldered between a two pieces base.

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Seeing the top of the BARAM gives the really good look at the wave I have been discussing. This view also provides you a look at how the heat-pipes are oriented with the BARAM. As you can tell, this isn't the typical in-line design. This is specifically designed again for more flow through the pipes as well as allowing more across the fins themselves. Both of the edges of the fins have a slight bump out on the tip; this is to snugly seat a 120mm fan and keep said fan from sliding around.

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The base of the cooler has the five pipes taking some pretty tight bends to get them into the correct orientation. Also, you can see that ThermoLab uses a press fit for the fins to snugly stay attached to the fins for thermal transfer. Lastly is the top view of the mounting holes, for both AMD and Intel mounting hardware.

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The base of the BARAM is polished to a mirror finish. I had to retake this image five times before I got something other than my lens in focus in the reflection. The base is relatively flat against a razor with minimal light coming in using a corner to corner test. Nothing to worry about, though, as no IHS that hasn't been lapped is completely flat either. You can also see the ledge that the hardware rests against when the mounting hardware comes into play.

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I chose to again use the Yate Loon's that I had used on my other fan-less coolers to keep the playing field even. This is of course with only one fan installed with the supplied hardware. This angle also shows just how much area the heat-pipes actually use.

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Here we have the BARAM with two fans strapped and ready to cool. One thing I did notice with the BARAM over most other coolers it that the cooler itself seems more compact. You can see that the 120mm fans are a bit bigger than the BARAM. This in my mind is a good design, as it gets more fins inside the flow of the blades and not what the corners cover as well, again improving the BARAM's ability to do its job.